Still battling about the many clutter in your life? Still at a loss as to what you should do first to implement some decluttering in your life, work, and family? Is the thought of decluttering more overwhelming than the clutter itself?

Not to worry, here a few simple rules to follow to effectively declutter your life.

Little by little goes a long, long way.

Definitely doing a little every day is far, far better than trying to do a lot all in one go. And let’s face it, you’ve been wanting to do everything in one go, but still you haven’t done it have you? Be realistic and be wise. A decluttered life or a clutter-free life is something of value; and we all know that something of value is not overnight. Something of value will cost you something. But it’s all worth it.

Okay, let’s say that you’ve had enough money to hire people to do the decluttering for your in one straight go. You may be successful for that one day, but you didn’t learn the lesson and you didn’t see the value of giving the effort to declutter. Sooner or later, you’ll have that clutter again.

And you say it’s all in the mind. You’re right, in part. Mental strength in combating clutter is needed, but it’s not the only factor. You still need to be involved in the decluttering. You need to go through the journey. Besides, your clutter didn’t come in one go. It took months and even years of laziness and procrastination to get to where you are now. The only way to combat this is to have the right mindset and to really do the effort. All you have to do is clean a few dishes each day, wash and iron a small basket of clothes each day, file away some paper work each day… Just stay on top of it!
Clean up your act.

A place for everything… and I mean everything.

In order for you to win the battle, you should realize that everything needs to have a designated space. You should place things that are alike together. The more you organize things according to their use, the more you’ll be able to remind yourself of where to put them.

A place for everything doesn’t just mean that you can put anything just anywhere as long as it’s kept out of sight. Nope. You also want to organize it for easy location. Even if your desk or room looks spic and span doesn’t mean you’re already good to go. If you’re neat on the outside, but your drawer is filled with things that don’t belong there, you’ll have the mental clutter that’s more serious than the actual physical clutter.

CAYGO—Clean As You GO

Most of the time, the reason why you begin to build up clutter in your space is because you don’t know how to clean up after yourself. After you took the knife to slice the cake, did you put it back after cleaning? Or did you just place it on the table, waiting for it to go back to its place? Or did you put back the magazine into the rack?

The more you leave things behind after using them, the more you forget where to place them (okay there are people who don’t forget, but their problem is laziness). So give yourself a break. Just make it a habit to clean as you go.

Do you make your bed after you woke up? Immediately? Or do you reason that you intend to make your bed when you get back from work, then you realize it’s again time to go to bed after a hard day, and so not able to really make your bed in the end. The cycle begins to roll and you’ll be in for a shocker. Clutter is slowly building up without you knowing it.

Or you may know, but can care less. Oh well, it’s your decision.

Your thoughts

What about you? What do you think? Are you able to make some decluttering measures to stay on top of things and avoid cluttering from building up? What did we miss?